Structure of the Sun

Join award winning teacher Jonathan Bergmann as he interactively teaches Astronomy: How the Sun Works. The focus of this lesson is the balance between the sun's internal forces, a hydrostatic equilibrium between a force that prevents the sun from co...llapsing and a force that holds it together. (06:57)[more]

Watching a particularly beautiful movie of the sun helps show how the lines between science and art can sometimes blur. But there is more to the connection between the two disciplines: science and art techniques are often quite similar, indeed one ma...y inform the other or be improved based on lessons from the other arena. (02:33)[more]

The sun's polarity is getting closer to flipping. The star's northern hemisphere's polarity has already reversed, and the southern hemisphere should follow suit soon, scientists say. Every 11 years or so, the two hemispheres of the sun reverse their ...polarity, creating a ripple effect that can be felt throughout the far reaches of the solar system. The sun is currently going through one of those flips in its cycle, scientists working at Stanford University's Wilcox Solar Observatory, which has monitored the sun's magnetic field since 1975, said. (02:07)[more]

Concepts: Chromosphere | Prominence | Sunspot | CME (Solar Flare)
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Part of a Blended Classroom taught at Millard West High School.
Produced for Millard Public Schools by Justin Higgins. (09:15)

Concepts: How Energy is created in Core, How energy moves in the Radiative Zone, How energy moves in the Conductive Zone, What is the Photosphere? Part of a Blended Classroom taught at Millard West High School. Produced for Millard Public Schools by ...Justin Higgins. (09:36)[more]

Since February 2011, the two spacecraft of NASA's the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory or STEREO mission have been providing scientists with unprecedented views of the far side of the sun.
The spacecraft travel at different speeds. This mea...ns that over time, the satellites become increasingly out of sync, appearing from Earth's perspective to drift farther apart, able to observe first the sides and eventually the far side of the sun. Now they are nearing each other once again, this time on the other side of the sun. During this period when the sun blocks Earth's view -- a geometrical position known in astronomy as a superior conjunction -- radio receivers on Earth will not be able to distinguish STEREO's signal from the sun's radiation. (02:56)[more]

Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities occur when two fluids of different densities or different speeds flow by each other. In the case of ocean waves, that's the dense water and the lighter air. As they flow past each other, slight ripples can be quickly am...plified into the giant waves loved by surfers. In the case of the solar atmosphere, which is made of a very hot and electrically charged gas called plasma, the two flows come from an expanse of plasma erupting off the sun's surface as it passes by plasma that is not erupting. (03:06)[more]

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